


Busting Open a Closed Door

by MagicLia16



Series: Trevor Wilson's Not Crazy (a series of jatp reveal fics) [3]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Carrie POV, Carrie does some investigating, Carrie finds out about her dad, Carrie finds out about the ghost boys (eventually), Curiosity, Gen, Lots of Research, Research, This fic is currently on simmer, Trevor feels guilty, WIP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:22:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27049399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicLia16/pseuds/MagicLia16
Summary: Carrie finds a Sunset Curve demo in her dad's old things.
Relationships: Carrie Wilson & Bobby | Trevor Wilson, Julie Molina & Carrie Wilson
Series: Trevor Wilson's Not Crazy (a series of jatp reveal fics) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1928911
Comments: 21
Kudos: 169





	1. Bobby

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Headcannons of All Shapes and Sizes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26647132) by [Random_Nerd3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_Nerd3/pseuds/Random_Nerd3). 



> I am so excited about this! I was originally planning a Carrie reveal, and then I found the perfect prompt, thanks to Random_Nerd3, and I switched around my original plan a little to fit with it. I hope you enjoy!  
> -  
> Also, this can absolutely be read as a stand-alone, but it references my other two fics in this series a little bit, so I recommend that you go read those first :)

Carrie… didn’t know how she was feeling. 

Originally, she was incredibly jealous of and mad at Julie for stealing Dirty Candy’s spotlight. Carrie had worked so hard to get as good as she is, and then, after a year of not singing or doing anything music related, Julie had stepped right on Carrie’s toes with great songs and a cute boy band that wasn’t even real. She was _not_ happy. 

Then, Julie had to go and turn Nick against her, before _shooting him down_ after he asked her out. It was unbelievable! Nick wouldn’t even take Carrie back, no matter what she tried!

And of course, for whatever reason, as soon as her dad had found out about the band,he was convinced that he had to see them play right away and drag her with him to the Orpheum. 

What Carrie hadn’t been expecting, though, was the heartfelt speech that Julie gave before she performed. When Julie mentioned her mom with all that passion and _love,_ it made Carrie’s heart break all over again. She deeply wished she’d known her own mother, but as she became close friends with Julie when they were little, Rose became the mom she always wanted. 

In her anger at Julie’s lack of interest in music, Carrie hadn’t let herself grieve, both for her loss of friendship and the loss of a mother figure. She felt it all come rushing back to her as Julie began to sing. 

_Don’t blink, no I don’t want to miss it_

_One thing, and it’s back to the beginning_

Carrie was transported back to the day they met in first grade. As soon as they laid eyes on each other, they were inseparable. Julie’s mom and Carrie’s dad were really close friends, and so were they. Every few days they would get together and share everything with each other. They would sing in that adorably-cute-but-horrible way kids did, and Rose would always be there to tell them that they were amazing, no matter what. What had happened? Why had she let Julie go? 

As the song progressed, Carrie saw the holograms appear one by one, and the pure relief and love she saw in Juile’s eyes made her wish that Julie still looked at her that way: as a best friend. 

When the song ended, she couldn’t believe how moving it was. It was such an inspirational piece, and Carrie was surprised to find that she actually enjoyed it, and respected Julie for the work she’d put into her music one she decided to focus on it again. 

_Well done, Julie._

~~~

After their performance at the Orpheum, Carrie watched as everything and nothing seemed to change at the same time. Julie and the Phantoms skyrocketed in popularity, but they continued to play smaller gigs as often as they could. 

Julie and Flynn could have ruled the school if they wanted to - they basically did anyway based on the sheer number of people obsessed with the band - but they decided to continue to lay low and stay true to themselves. 

Carrie didn’t really understand their choices, but if it worked for them, it worked for them. 

Unfortunately, Dirty Candy was still struggling. A lot. The music industry is hard, and Dirty Candy just didn’t have a good enough sound or image to really stand out. She’d done all she could, but she wasn’t feeling very inspired anymore. Her songs always came out snarky and unrelatable, even for herself. It was the same mask she’d always put up in front of others since she and Julie broke off their friendship. 

At this rate, the only reason they were still getting gigs was because of her dad, and Carrie hated it. 

One day, Carrie found herself looking through some of her dad’s old things; stuff that he’d kept from high school and college. There wasn’t much of it, though. From what she gathered, he wasn’t a huge fan of who he was when he was younger and had only kept the few items that really meant a lot to him. She was hoping to find some inspiration for music, or something that at least sparked her interest for a conversation with him. They hadn’t been talking as much recently, and she hoped to rectify that. 

As she looked through the boxes, her hope in finding something that was even at all interesting began to dwindle. She hadn’t found any pictures, yearbooks, assignments, nothing. All of it was random trinkets and things that had no meaning to her. That is, until she came to the last box. 

It was much more empty than the others. The only contents were a song book and an old CD case. There was no cover on it; nothing to give away what it was until she opened it. Inside, Carrie found a picture of four boys with the words _Sunset Curve_ in the background, which she assumed was the band name. They all looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on why. She flipped the picture over and found her dad’s writing on the back. 

_Luke, Alex, Bobby, Reggie  
_ _May 18, 1995_

Carrie figured they must have been close to her dad. Maybe friends of his? She decided that she might as well give it a listen. It would be cool to hear what kind of music her dad had been into when he was her age. 

She put the CD in the player and hit the play button. 

Her first thought was that it was definitely a rock song. Her second thought was that she’d heard this song before. Again, the memory evaded her. As much as she tried, Carrie couldn’t figure out where she recognized the song from. It had been relatively recent; she knew that much. Maybe her dad had played it?

After listening to the CD a few times through with no luck remembering, she decided to head for the trusty Google rout. She was not at all expecting the results that she found. 

_Sunset Curve, A Hollywood Tragedy_

Three out of the four members were dead, and the other was MIA. What was up with this band?!

Unfortunately, her musings were cut short since it was one of those nights when she was actually having dinner with her dad. 

~~~

As they sat down to eat the pizza they’d ordered, Carrie thought about how she might bring up the topic of Sunset Curve. Eventually, she settled on just blurting it out and seeing what happens. 

“So. _Dad_. Why do you like Sunset Curve so much?” 

He promptly choked on his water. She hadn’t realized that she would startle him that much, but she had to admit that catching him off his guard was just a little hilarious. 

Once Trevor got himself under control, he turned to her with an unidentifiable look on his face. 

“Carrie, how did you hear about that band?”

Carrie figured that if she wanted the truth from him, she should tell the truth as well. 

“Remember how I was going through some of your old things a few weeks ago? Well I picked it back up this afternoon, and in one of the boxes I found a Sunset Curve CD. I saw your writing on the back of the photo that was in it, and I figured you probably knew them. I listened to their music and it was really good.” Carrie paused for a brief moment, thinking. “Now that I think about it, their songs reminded me a bit of yours! So how did you know them?”

She could see the cogs turning in his brain. He was always careful with his words, and Carrie knew exactly what it looked like when he was considering what to say. If she really wanted to know, she knew she needed to wait patiently until he was ready to speak. 

“Carrie,” her dad said, before pausing again with a sigh. She could see the inner conflict on his face as he thought. She could tell that this, for whatever reason, was going to be hard for him to talk about. 

“Dad, if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s ok. You don’t have to. I was just curious.” She moved to leave the table and begin cleaning up, but her dad stopped her. 

“No, you deserve to know this. I’d hoped to wait a little longer to tell you, but I know that I would keep pushing it off anyway. You deserve to know.

“When I was in highschool, I was in a small band called Sunset Curve. We were actually quite good and were about to make it big. Unfortunately, they died from bad hotdogs the night before we were supposed to play the biggest show of our lives.” 

Carrie had known that her dad had had to have gotten his start somewhere; had heard him briefly mention a band once or twice, but she’d had no idea that he'd gone through the pain of losing three friends. It said a lot that he was able to move forward so well. 

Trevor continued. 

“Their death… it ruined me. I couldn’t think properly. I kept imagining them being there, I barely even registered their death half the time, and the other half I was drowning in the pain of losing them. It was bad. Really bad. I… I almost didn’t make it through. The only thing that kept me going was their music. I’d go back and play it all the time, just to remember them. 

“About a year after their death, after I’d had more time to come to terms with it, I decided to get their music out there. I wanted to create a legacy for them so that they’d be remembered. 

“But my good intentions spiraled out of control. People stopped wanting to hear about the tragic deaths of three teens, so my manager, with my help, swept it under the rug. I changed my name, and tried to create my own music for a while; make a new reputation for myself, but to be honest, I’m a terrible writer. My music doesn’t stick with people like Luke’s did. 

“So I took his music, this time without giving any credit. I convinced myself that at least his music was still out there being heard and appreciated. I thought about coming clean all the time, but I loved my fame too much. It got to my head. And then I had you and I couldn’t bear to break the stability, to raise you in a life of ‘what if’ and shame. Even if you had to unknowingly live under a lie, I decided it was worth it. Eventually, I ran out of songs. Of course I would. This entire plan was so wrong and after talking to them… hearing their anger…”

Carrie saw how he was starting to ramble at this point, getting lost in his thoughts. He was clearly very tired, since he’d started mentioning actually _speaking to them,_ and she figured this was a good time to stop. Otherwise, he might spiral into another bout of drinking. She couldn’t let that happen, especially not after how hard he’d worked to stop in the past year. 

“Dad.”

Trevor cut off and looked at her with the most honest, scared, and guilty look she’d ever seen on him. 

“Thank you for telling me the truth. I have to admit, it’s a lot to take in. Why don’t you go get ready for bed, and I’ll clean up.” 

He nodded and headed back up the stairs, leaving Carrie alone with her thoughts. She began clearing the plates as she mulled over everything that she had just learned about her dad. 

She was surprised to find that she wasn’t actually as angry as she thought. She was certainly mad that he hadn’t told her and that he had done something so horrible, but all that was overshadowed by the guilt that she felt for the other boys’ families. 

They had never known how successful their children would have been, or even got to hear the rest of their songs. As the daughter of the last surviving Sunset Curve member, Carrie had some work to do to make things right. 


	2. Luke

It had been three days, and Carrie was still having trouble wrapping her head around the fact that her dad had stolen songs from his friend. It was unforgivable, no matter if they were dead or not. That boy’s family deserved better than having his legacy stolen completely. 

Carrie decided that she would take it upon herself to give back to the families that her dad had stolen from, and do her best to make it right, however that may be. First, though, she had some research to do. 

After school that day, Carrie came home, ignored all the homework she had piled up, opened her computer, and got to work. 

She googled  _ “Sunset Curve.”  _ Many of the same results came up that did before, but at the moment she wasn’t interested in their tragic death by hot dogs. She wanted to learn about the individual band members. It took some scrolling, but eventually she came across a bio for them. It looked like it had been photocopied from a newspaper and uploaded to the internet. It was a bit hard to make out, but eventually she figured it out. 

There was a main section of the bio that talked about who they were as a band, the shows they’d played and a lot of business stuff in case someone wanted to hire them. Carrie found that interesting, but that wasn’t what she was looking for. 

Below the description of the band were small blurbs about the members themselves. It wasn’t much information, but it was enough to give her a start. 

From there, she did even more digging, searching as deep as she could to find their full life stories. As she searched, one of the pieces she easily connected was that Robert “Bobby” Weber was, in fact, her dad. Back in their conversation he’d mentioned that he had changed his name and that he was one of the four members of the band. Even without having any pictures of her dad as a teen to reference, the only person in the photo that looked even remotely like him was Bobby. It wasn’t that hard to connect the dots. 

Carrie got so invested in researching the band that it took over her entire life for the rest of the week. She was determined to find any living relatives that she could go talk to about them; to tell the parents what her father had done and how successful their sons would have been. 

Just as she was about to give up, finally,  _ finally,  _ she found what she’d been looking for. A name. A name of one of the band member’s parents. Emily Patterson, mother of Luke Patterson. She had someone. She’d found them. 

~~~

It took her another two weeks to build up the courage to actually go talk to her. Carrie found herself constantly thinking about it; if today would be the day where she would actually do it. 

One day, three weeks after her conversation with her dad, three weeks of obsessing over his old band, with not paying attention to basically anything else, Carrie finally decided enough was enough; that she had to take the leap before she could talk herself out of it for the rest of her life. 

After coming to her decision, Carrie was too anxious to sit in a classroom all day. She said to herself ‘ _ screw it’  _ and in the chaos during the transition between fourth period and lunch, she slipped out of the building unnoticed. 

Once she’d walked a decent number of blocks away from the school, she called a taxi and began the journey across town to meet the parents of her dad’s former best friend. 

When she arrived, Carrie handed the driver a wad of cash to encourage him to stick around while she talked to the Pattersons. She exited the car and began to walk up the steps to the front porch. Her heart was racing like crazy. 

As soon as Carrie rang the doorbell, she realized that she actually hadn’t planned what she was going to say to them. She was just going to have to wing it and hope for the best; take it one step at a time in her introduction and explanation. 

An older woman answered the door. As soon as she noticed Carrie, she had a bit of a shocked look on her face. 

“Hi, I’m Carrie Wilson. Are you Emily Patterson?” 

The woman extended her hand and offered a confirmation that she was indeed Luke Patterson’s mother (obviously she didn’t actually say that directly, but Carrie was smart enough to figure it out). 

As she waved Carrie inside, Emily called her husband into the main living area. As she walked through the house, Carrie noticed little musical mementos scattered around. In the corner was a guitar, she saw a pick resting on the fireplace mantle, and on the side table by the couch, she briefly noticed what looked like a framed page of song lyrics and chords written in messy handwriting that had Emily’s name on it. 

They all sat down in the living room, Carrie taking a moment to collect her thoughts. 

She took a deep breath and began. “I have something to confess. A little while ago I found out something about my dad, that he should have made you aware of a very, very long time ago. My dad is Trevor Wilson.”

She heard a sharp intake of breath at that, of course, because who didn’t know who Trevor Wilson was? Carrie continued. 

“I recently learned that he was in a small band in high school, with three others. They were actually close to making it big, but his other three band members died from bad hotdogs right before they were about to play the Orpheum. 

“Trevor Wilson, my dad, used to be Bobby Weber.”

Carrie decided to pause there to let that particular bomb settle in before she dropped the nuke on them. They sat for a moment, thinking, before Mitch spoke. 

“I’m glad he was able to move past his grief and become so successful.” 

That hadn’t been quite the answer she thought she’d get, but to be honest, she wasn’t even sure what she even had been expecting, so she’d take what she got. 

“Thank you for tell-”

Carrie cut Emily’s thanks off. 

“There’s more. I know that your son, Luke, was the main writer of Sunset Curve. If there’s one thing you need to know about my dad, is that he sucks at writing. Every time we’ve ever tried to write a song together, he just can’t do it. I’d wondered for a long time how he was able to constantly write hits when he was so  _ bad  _ at it. 

“It all made perfect sense when I learned that he didn’t. He didn’t write any of them. Not a single one. They were all Luke’s. My dad started a solo career based off stealing his late friend’s music, and he didn’t tell you.”

“I just… as soon as I found out, I knew I had to tell you. Both of you deserve to know what a success your son could have been; to know that, even though it was not done so in good spirits, his music is still out there for people,  _ especially you _ , to listen to and enjoy. I am so, so sorry that it took this long for you to know.” 

~~~

After that, Carrie hadn’t stuck around long. They’d been so shocked at the news that they were barely even paying attention to her anymore, they were so lost in their own thoughts. She had scribbled her number on a piece of paper she found in her purse with the reassurance that they could call her anytime they wanted to talk. And with that, she left.

Looking back, Carrie figured she probably could have eased them into it a bit more, but in the end, she told them what they should have been told a long time ago. 

~~~

What Carrie was unaware of, was just what affects her little visit had on the other members of Sunset Curve. The very person who wrote all of Trevor Wilson’s hit songs often visited his parents whenever he felt he needed someone to talk to, even though they couldn’t hear him. 

So when he came in one day and heard them listening to some of his songs (as distributed by a disrespectful, but slowly-starting-to-be-forgiven ex-band member) and talking about how talented _he_ was for them, he knew he had to report back to the rest of the gang that someone else knew about his input in Trevor Wilson’s music, and had told his parents. Who knew who else they would tell? 


	3. Reggie

Carrie couldn’t lie. It felt amazing knowing that she had cleared the air with the Pattersons; that they knew just how much of a success their son was, and what horrible thing her dad had done. 

Her dad. How did he really feel about this? He’d seemed really shaken up when he’d come clean, but was that guilt? Fear of being found out? What? 

Carrie knew that they needed to have another talk about it, but she was not eager to start that conversation up again anytime soon. She decided to let it rest between them for a little while longer. 

That being said, she still had two more families to find, and both of them had proven to be much better hidden than the Pattersons. She had her work cut out for her. 

_ ~~~ _

_ Sunset Curve Reggie Parker  _

_ Reggie Parker death _

_ Reginald Parker Sunset Curve Death _

_ Alex Johnson Sunset Curve _

_ Sunset Curve members high school  _

_ Reggie Parker 1995 high school _

_ Reginald Parker 1995 high school _

_ High Schools in Hollywood CA 1995 _

_ Woods Grove High School class of 1995 yearbook _

_ Tharington high school LA 1995 yearbook _

_ Arcadia high school LA 1995 yearbook  _

_ When did yearbooks become digitized _

_ Where to find old high school records from 1995 _

_ State archives California  _

_ LA to sacramento drive time  _

_ What to do on a ten hour car ride  _

And on and on and on.

~~~

It took Carrie nearly another week - and a  _ LONG _ talk with her dad about why she wanted him to let her fly up to Sacramento on her own - before she found any clues as to either Alex or Reggie’s families or where they might be. He didn’t necessarily say no to the trip, but he needed a reasonable explanation that she still wasn’t ready to talk about. 

Since going to Sacramento was out of the question, she kept digging and digging. Carrie didn’t know what exactly had happened, but neither Reggie nor Alex’s parents seemed to want to be associated with their dead sons anymore. 

After another  _ eternity  _ of searching, she finally found something that she could use. The little nugget she found was a land purchase from 1989 on one of the local beaches to Jack and Carol Parker, Reggie’s parents. She’d been so excited at first to find Reggie’s childhood home, so she had hopped right onto google maps to unfortunately see that it had been turned into a bike shack sometime in the last 25 years. 

Once her only lead was caput, she decided to take a little break from the research, as she’d pretty much killed her social life while she’d been trying to find them. That is, until the next morning when she saw she’d been left a message from an unknown number. 

“ _ Carrie, this is Emily Patterson. I saw after you left that you gave us your phone number as you were leaving. Thank you for that. It’s nice to know that I have a way to contact you if needed. That being said, I still have so many questions, but that isn’t the point of the call. I know it’s late and I wasn’t expecting you to pick up anyway. I don’t think I’ll be able to work up the courage to call you about this again, so here goes.  _

_ “Mitch and I would like to invite you and your father to come have dinner with us. I know that you said that he didn’t know about you finding us, but we would really like to talk to him. We haven’t spoken since the first few weeks after the... funerals.  _

_ “We used to consider him an honorary family member and were always so sad that he broke contact. We’d really love to speak with him. Take some time to think about it and discuss with Bo- Trevor, and get back to us. Thank you, Carrie.” _

Carrie was a little shocked that Emily had reached out so soon, and to ask to talk to her dad, no less. She’d assumed they’d be angry like she was about him stealing their son’s songs and wouldn’t want to talk about it again for quite some time. Obviously she was wrong. 

How was she going to approach her dad about this? He’d probably be upset that she contacted them without telling him, and also connect the dots about her randomly wanting to fly across the state to go look at dusty old papers. Then again, maybe he’d kept tabs on the families or something, and might know where either Reggie or Alex’s parents and possible siblings had ended up 25 years later. She didn’t know what he knew about the situation. 

It could also be an opportunity to ask Mrs. Patterson if she knew too. Maybe she was still in contact with someone? It was worth a shot! 

But… she still had to tell her dad. Yay. 

~~~

All in all, the conversation actually went surprisingly well, in Carrie’s opinion. Of course, Trevor had not been very happy that she had reached out to the Pattersons without telling him, but he’d admitted that it was time for them to know. He’d been pleased that they’d taken the news so well, and was quite shocked when Carrie told him that they wanted to have him over for dinner. He’d reluctantly agreed to go, after Carrie had guilt tripped him into it. He owed it to them after what he did. 

Carrie called Emily back right away, and set a dinner date for that Friday night. Neither her or her dad had anything planned which was a bit unusual, but a nice stroke of luck. The Pattersons were free as well, so that was the night they decided on. 

Thankfully, it was only Tuesday, which allowed Carrie a few precious days to take a break from her research on Alex and Reggie and focus solely on school. She was incredibly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work she’d missed, and devoted the rest of her week to catching up as best she could. 

By the time Friday rolled around, she was feeling a bit better about her classes. It had been one hell of a week, and despite the tension between her and her dad, Carrie was actually looking forward to seeing Emily and Mitch again. They’d been so warm and welcoming when they’d last met. 

One of her dad’s drivers dropped the two of them off at the Patterson’s house and was told to wait outside until they were finished. Sometimes she felt a little bad for the drivers since waiting in a car never seemed comfortable, but she supposed the pay was worth it. 

Carrie and her dad walked up to the front door in silence, both clearly deep in their thoughts. She assumed this was a very big deal for her dad. Emily had said that he’d once been like family to them, and he must have felt the same way. She still didn’t understand why he wouldn’t even talk to them for so long. 

The Pattersons were just as friendly as they’d been the first time, welcoming the two of them into their home. Dinner was a bit of an awkward affair at first, with lots of tension left from the fact that her dad  _ had  _ stolen their son’s work and hadn’t given credit, but as they talked and Emily and Mitch understood what had happened and that he was trying his best to make up for what he did, each of them really opened up to one another. Carrie could tell that her dad was really happy seeing them again. 

~~~

Once the four of them finished eating, Emily got up to begin clearing the table and Carrie volunteered to help her, both to be polite and so that the two of them could have a moment alone. 

In the kitchen as the two of them began washing and drying the dishes, Carrie brought up a painful subject; one that she felt she needed to know. 

“Emily, can I ask you something personal? I know it might be hard for you, but I really don’t feel comfortable asking my dad about it.”

Emily turned to the teen with an open and reassuring look on her face. “My dear, you can ask me anything. No matter what it is, I won’t judge.” 

Carrie continued the task of drying the dishes as she spoke. 

“I… I was wondering if you would feel comfortable telling me where Reggie was buried? I can’t locate his parents or any other family, but I at least want to pay my respects. What my dad did was unforgivable, and I feel like I have to do something to repay that. That was my goal when I came to see you last week. I needed to feel like I’d rectified it, at least a little bit, and telling you helped me feel better about it. I feel like I have to do  _ something  _ for Reggie, even if I can’t find his family.” 

Carrie was surprised to find a tear rolling down her cheek as she let it all out to this kind woman who had been a victim to the same horrible tragedy as her dad. Thinking about it, she felt bad for bringing it up, but that feeling was washed away with her kind words. 

“Carrie, the accident, what your dad did, none of that is your fault. Yes, what your father did was wrong, but he’s making up for his mistakes now. We all do things we regret. What matters is what we do when we realize that, and how we make up for it. I wish from the bottom of my heart that I could talk to my son again and make things better, but I can’t.

“You, on the other hand, have nothing to atone for. You should not fault yourself for your father’s mistakes, but since you do feel like you need to do something for him, I’ll give you the address of the cemetery. It’s so hard for us to go sometimes… too many bad memories. I’m glad you’ll be giving him the respect he deserved.”

Emily pulled a pad of sticky notes from one of the drawers and proceeded to scribble down some words before handing it off to her. 

Before she was about to walk back out to the dining area, Carrie heard Emily speak one more time. 

“Carrie, you’re a good girl who cares so much. Never let anyone take that away from you.” 

“Thank you, Emily.” 

As Carrie and her dad walked back out to the car, he turned to her. “Are you ok?” It seemed that he’d noticed her slightly puffy eyes. 

“Yeah, I’m ok. You?”

With a small, contemplative smile, he said “I’m getting there.” 

Carrie could tell that things were starting to come together. 

~~~

A few days later, Carrie found herself standing at the gates to the Oak Park Cemetery, about to go seek out the grave of her dad’s old bandmate, who’d had such a rough life that he couldn’t be found after death, forgotten by even his parents. Carrie resolved never to let him be forgotten completely. 

She walked through rows and rows of the dead, thinking about how fleeting life could be when she found it. A gray headstone the same as all the rest with a name, a birthdate, and a deathdate. No inscription, nothing to show that the person who made it had any care for him. It broke her heart. 

As she reached to place down the flowers that she’d brought, something in the dirt caught her eye. As she dug the item up, she found that it was a guitar pick, and clearly a well-loved one based on the number of small doodles on it in permanent marker. It seems someone had cared enough to place it as a marker for what this boy had lived for. She placed it on top of the headstone, in a prominent place for everyone to walk by and see; a reminder of a boy with a rough childhood who turned to music as his only option. 

She was happy that she could give him that much, though she ached to be able to do more. ‘The little things matter just as much’ she reminded herself as she walked away, her eyes once more drifting back to the cold reminder of a boy who died so young, who never got to see his full potential. 


End file.
